Meetup Description: The Prosperity Balloon Tour is coming to Colorado. Full info is at www.costofhotair.com. They are pointing out that the $1.2 trillion tax increase for Global Warming will trash our economy. And the regulation that goes with it will severely restrict our already shrinking liberties.

The best place to meet them is at Chatfield Reservoir during the huge Balloon Festival. The festival starts at 6:30am and goes till 8am. The Prosperity Balloon event is scheduled for 8:30am. They usually have a free BBQ but probably not that early in the morning.

If you don't have a state parks pass and you aren't walking or biking in, you'll have to pay $7 to get into the park.

Americans for Prosperity (AFP) is a front group for the multi-national conglomerate Koch Industries, who was the founder of AFP and a financial supporter through the family-controlled and company-financed Claude R. Lambe Foundation. Koch Industries, Inc. and its sister company, Koch Holdings, LLC, own a group of companies invested in refineries, chemicals, and minerals. With $90 billion in annual sales, Koch Industries is the largest privately owned company in the United States.

The Koch companies have an atrocious record of sloppy operations. According to the EPA, Koch Industries is responsible for over 300 oil spills in the US and has leaked three million gallons of crude oil into fisheries and drinking waters. They were fined a record $35 million dollars and an additional $8 million in Minnesota for discharging into streams.

It’s easy to see why the Koch family would plant and nurture sockpuppet groups like AFP. Koch can’t just come out and say we should ignore global warming, because their self-interest is too obvious. AFP is currently on a nationwide tour calling environmental proponents “alarmists” and pro business anti-environmentalists “realists.” Ironically enough, their image of choice is a hot air balloon. But when over a million dollars of your funding in 2005 comes directly from donors like the Koch Industries “charitable foundation,” maybe hot air is all you’ve got to work with.

On “Fox and Friends”, Nancy Mitchell Pfotenhauer — a top policy adviser for Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — derided those who say that lifting the offshore drilling moratorium won’t affect gas prices, saying it “reveals ignorance on the futures markets.”

That position puts her at odds with the federal Energy Information Administration, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA), McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin, and even McCain himself. Why would Pfotenhauer go so far off message?

Perhaps it’s because the only ones who would benefit from lifting the moratorium are energy companies like Koch Industries (pronounced “coke”), the largest private company in the United States, the secretive backer of the right-wing message machine, and Pfotenhauer’s longtime boss.

That's why "American's for Prosperity's" Colorado Director Jim Pfaff says "The time to drill is now." But some say that Jim Pfaff has a history of making mischaracterizations and false claims in his former role as a lobbyist for Focus on the Family. You decide.

The Libertarian Party of Colorado welcomes all liberty minded Americans to join the ground-swell of activism focused on preserving our freedoms. Our calendar is packed with events, from weekly lunches and happy hours, enveloping stuffing parties, protests at the capital, expert speakers, manning booths at the People's Fair or Taste of Colorado, to debates and candidate forums. Libertarians are passionate about their 'More Liberty-Less Government' philosophy, and our calendar reflects their commitment. Join the movement, make a difference!